The invention relates to a method of displaying text to be spoken by a speaker, and to apparatus for such display. Such a system can be used in a television studio to generate a television signal.
When a person is delivering a speech from a previously prepared script, for example a newsreader in a televised news broadcast or someone addressing a conference audience, a visual prompting system is frequently used. This presents the words to the speaker within their natural line of sight by using partially-reflecting mirrors appropriately positioned, for example, across the lens of a television camera. FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of a typical arrangement currently used in a television studio whilst FIG. 2 is a side view showing how the partially-reflecting mirror allows the speaker to read the projected text of the script whilst looking into the lens of the television camera.
In the system 100 of FIGS. 1 and 2, a newsreader 112 is seated before a television camera 114. The television camera is provided with a partially-reflecting mirror 116 over the camera lens, inclined at 45.degree. to the horizontal and leaning away from the camera towards the newsreader. Below the partially-reflecting mirror 116 is positioned a text display device 118, for example a computer monitor in the form of a cathode ray tube display device. Text displayed on the display device 118 can be seen by the newsreader 112 as, being in the camera lens, it is in the line of sight of the newsreader. Just a few words can be displayed in this way; FIG. 1 shows the display of the words "The incident was seen". The display is driven by a suitable computer, for example based on a standard personal computer.
This arrangement allows the presenter to see the next few words of the script. An operator controls the scrolling of the projected text smoothly upwards to match the spoken delivery made by the presenter. In this way the presenter is able to read from the text without looking away from the camera.
Whilst this works very effectively, it requires an operator to control the scrolling of the text in time with the speaker.
International Patent Application WO-A-90/01203 describes a system using speech recognition in conjunction with a display, as part of a language training system to train a student to speak a foreign language. The quality of the speech is indicated to the user, and then the system moves on to new text. In International Patent Application WO-A-94/10666 is described a children's speech training aid which compares a child's speech with stored models of speech, and gives an indication of whether or not the child has spoken correctly. Finally, European Patent Application EP-A-0 649 144 describes a method of automatically indexing recorded audio using speech recognition, for use in aligning text stored in computer files and a recording. The system using indexing is complicated and would be difficult to operate in real time.